"Above" - Isla Morley

Ratings

Violence: 3/5

Drug Abuse: 0/5

Nudity: 0/5

Language: 0/5

Sexual Content: 5/5

Violence: She attempts and sometimes wounds Dobbs and herself. Children are killed.

Sexual Content: She is raped repeatedly. 

Summary

     Blythe was kidnapped at the city festival by a survivalist who locked her away in a silo at Eudora, Kansas. In the beginning she tries every method possible to fight and find her way out hoping for freedom and counting on others to find her. However as the silence encloses around her below ground she realizes that no one is coming and that she wants to live. Her kidnapper tries to convince her that the world is coming to an end and that he is doing her a favor since they will emerge just as Adam and Eve after the world has been changed. 

     At times she wants to give up when the loneliness engulfs her but nothing prepares her for raising a child in a confined space. Desiring the happiest moments for her child she adopts the kidnapper's story that the world has been destroyed and that it's no longer safe to be outside. An event years later grant Blythe the choice of denying all her son knows as the truth or sticking to her story and survival. 

Review

     This story is dark and hard to read. Not that it's boring or anything but Blythe doesn't seem like a real teenager to me and it goes through some gross stuff. I kept imagining her as older rather than sixteen. Her personal thoughts and behavior just didn't fit well with the age in my book. The story is interesting but it really flopped halfway through when they finally get above ground. 

     Also, at times she tries to paint her kidnapper as not such a bad guy but he was a slime ball! I didn't really care for it because I didn't finish it. Don't ask me to because I'm not going to. The first half was intriguing but when they get above ground it just died. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Like I said it is dark because she is raped repeatedly, attempts suicide and children die. 

By: J Feistner